


we're all damaged

by blood_and_gore



Series: Stage [2]
Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bulimia, Bullying, Gen, Gun Violence, Meta, Metafiction, Multiple Universes, Social Issues, Therapy, Trauma, What-If, possibilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 06:43:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18655036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blood_and_gore/pseuds/blood_and_gore
Summary: There are so many ways it all could have gone.





	we're all damaged

**Author's Note:**

> TW for basically all of the major triggers in both the movie and the musical, plus discussion of the aftermath of gun violence.

Nowadays, the Heathers would all be named Maddie or Lexi or Em. Kurt and Ram would be Mike and Sean or Ethan and Andrew. Jason is still relatively common, so J.D. wouldn't change.  
Well, they're all either villains, or they're portrayed as such at one point or another and are overall morally ambiguous. It seems fitting for them all to have white-sounding names.

_I love Heather, Heather, and Heather.  
I hate Heather, Heather, and Heather._

.

In one version, the romance never happens, because it's 2019 and J.D. knows all too well the aftermath of a school shooting.

In this version, Kurt dies first. Then Ram. Then a few innocent passerby, then the new kid himself.

The faculty send thoughts and prayers. None of them were in the cafeteria; none of them see the lasting scars. Local newspapers briefly take notice before forgetting; the world never hears about this, the latest line in a long tale of senseless violence.

Ms. Fleming, ever the exception, tries to talk to each student individually. But notes are easily stolen and lost, courtesy of Duke, and soon the whole school knows that Heather MacNamara is in a psych ward, clinging to the lifeboat in her mind.

In this version, Veronica marches with a mask on her face and a copy of Moby Dick in her arms; her parents don't catch her. She's imprisoned briefly at seventeen, then several more times over the years.

_If we've still got the right-_

.

Another version: exactly as stated above, except for Veronica. She goes to therapy when the panic gets bad enough for her parents to notice. It does nothing, and her improvised bedsheet noose is all too effective.

.

Perhaps Kurt and Ram really are together, and their bullying is merely a trap to keep anyone from getting too close to the closet.

Does it matter, though? Step on a mousetrap and anyone will bleed.

Their suicide has nothing to do with Veronica, and they are fully clothed but holding hands. Their fathers exchange several looks and nothing more at the funeral.

.

  
Mid-interview, Heather Duke breaks down in tears in front of the newscaster.

.

What if Veronica is caught after all? What if her forgery isn't quite good enough for the tiny forensics team in Sherwood, and the FBI is brought in? Perhaps she's excused for her youth. Perhaps she tells the truth, about who really switched the drinks. Or she could cover it up, say it was meant to be a prank. She's a middle-class white girl in Sherwood, Ohio, after all. Does J.D. say a word?

.

What if J.D. got help, long before any of this started? In a few of these universes, he still comes to Westerburg, and his relationship with Veronica is far more steady. Their love is God.

.

_"You should see a doctor, Heather."_  
_"Yeah, Heather. Maybe I should."_

The second week of senior year, Veronica's weird boyfriend persuades Heather Duke to look into a therapy program. She throws away the intake forms on impulse, one dark night when the insecurity is taking her over, but Veronica forges her signature and drops it off. Her first therapy appointment is nerve-wracking to the point of terror.

She stops purging after a few years. It's another two years after that before she manages to stop bingeing, but after that she stays in recovery and college is wild in the best of ways. It's all the better with the knowledge that her friends are a text away.

.

There's a universe where Heather MacNamara cheers for the Razorbacks, Heather Duke goes by Henry, and Heather Chandler is a bit nicer. Maybe she's still rich and popular in this universe, and maybe she still has a mean-girl group, but the Heathers do not exist here and their antics are thus different.

.

There are multiple universes where Veronica _did_ skip several grades. At seventeen, she's in her freshman year of college. Is she happy? Is she dying inside? Do her choices in friends and lovers still lead her to heartbreak? Answers vary by location.

.

While we're at it: where are the Heathers' parents? Don't they _care_? Don't they have any idea?

.

Martha has been bullied her whole life; she does not believe in holding on, but in holding out. Holding out for better things. Yeah, she'll miss Veronica when they inevitably part ways for college, but the thought of a place where no one's ever insulted or harassed her and no one knows it's happened... is too tempting to give up. Martha doesn't care about some bully she had a crush on in kindergarten; years of hurt make up for a few months of attachment.

Martha has been bullied her whole life long, and her mental walls are five feet thick. This is nothing new. In this universe, she holds her head high all through senior year.  
_College will be paradise._

_We'll make it beautiful._

**Author's Note:**

> i do not own any part of any iteration of Heathers, be it the musical or the film. i've acted in it, though!


End file.
